The Bolivar bulletin. [volume] (Bolivar, Hardeman County, Tenn.) 1865-1888, 1887-10-07
NO. T.

AnereSa, VINO rode up the Hill OF OSuNuCS
and shook her sword at the four corners Of
the earth.
''But," you say, 'syou shut US young
folks out from all fun" o mol like fun,
believe in fun. have had lots of it in my
time. But I have not had to go into the
paths of sin to find it. No credit to me,
but because of an extraordinary parental
example and influence I was kept from
outward transgressions, though my heart
was bad enough and desperately wicked.
have had fun illimitable, though / never
swore one oath, and never gambled for so
much as the worth of a pin, and never
saw the inside of haunt of sin save IS
when ten years ago, with commissioner of
police and detective and two elders of my
church, I explored these cities by mid
night, not out Of curiosity, but that might
in pulpit discourse set before the people
the poverty and the horrors Of UNDER
ground city life. Yet, though never was
intoxicated for an instant, and never COM
mitted one act of dissoluteuess, restrained
only by the grace Of God, without which
restraint would have gone headlong to
the bottom of infamy, have had so much
fun that don't believe there is man on
the planet in the present time who has had
more.
There they go-two brothers. The one
was converted a year ago in church, one
Sunday morning during prayer, or SER
mon, or hymn. No one knew it at the
time. The persons on either side of him
suspected nothing, but in that young
mans soul this process went on;
"Lord, here 1 am, young man amid the
temptations of city life, and am afraid to
risk them alone; como and be my guar
dian and my help; save me from making
the mistake that some of my comrades are
making, and save me now"
Ahav C.A al
Heaven into his soul. He is just as jolly
as he used to be, is just as brilliant as he
used to be. He can strike bali or catch
one as easily as before he was converted.
With gun or fishing-rod in this summer
vacation he was just as skillful as before.
The world is brighter to him than ever.
He appreciates pictures, music, Innocent
hilarity, social life, good jokes, and has
plenty Of fun, first-class fun, glorious
fun.
But his brother Is going down hill. In
the morning his head aches from the
champagne debauch. Everybody sees he
is in rapid descent. What cares he for
right or decency, or the honor Of his
family9 Turned out Of employment,
depleted In health, cast down
in spirits, the typhoid fever strikes him in
the smallest room on the fourth story of a
fifth-rate clearinghouse cursing God
and calling for his mother, and fighting
back demons from his dying pillow, which
is besweated and torn to rags. He plUnges
out of this world with the shrek of
destroyed spirit.
Alas for that kind of funl 1t is re-
morse. 1t is despair. IL is blackness Of
darkness, 1t is woe unending and long
reverberating, and crushing as though all
the mountains Of all continents rolled on
him in one avalanche. My soul, stand
back from such fun. Young man there is
no fun in shipwrecking your character,
no fun in disgracing your fathers
name. There is no fun in breaking your
mothers heart. There Is no fun in the
physical pangs Of the dissolute. There is
no fun in the prodigate's death-bed.
There is no fun in an undons eternity.
Paracelsus, out of the ashes of a burnt
rose, said he could recreate the rose, but
he failed in the alchemic undertaking,
and the roseate life once burned down in
sin can never again be made to blossom.
Oh. this plumb line of the everlasting
right! God will throw it over all our lives
to show US our moral dehections.
God will throw it over all churches
to show whether they are doing useful
work or are attending instances Of idle
ness and pretense. He will throw that
plumb line over all nations to demonstrate
whether their laws are Just or cruel, their
rulers good or bad, their ambitions holy
or infamous. He threw that plumb line
over the Spanish monarchy OF other days,
and what became Of her? Ask the splint-
cred hulks Of her overthrown armada.
He threw that plumb line over French
imperialism, and what was the results
Ask the ruins of the Tuileries, and the
fallen column of the Place Vendome, and
the grave trenches Of Sedan, and tho blood
of revolutions at different times rolling
through the Champs Elysees. He threw
that plumb lire over ancient Rome,
and what became Of the realm
of the Cpsars2 Ask her war eagles,
with beaks dulled and wings broken, flung
helpless into the Tiber. He threw IL over
the Assyrian Empire Of a thousand years.
the thrones Of Semiramus and Sardana-
palus and Shalmaneser, Of twenty-seven
victorious expeditions, the cities Of Phm-
nicia kneeling to the scepter, and all the
world blanched in the presence. What
became Of all the GRANDEUR Ask the
fallen palaces Of Khorsabad and the
corpses of 900 soldiery slain by the an
gel of the Lord In one night, and the AS
syrian sculptures of the worlds museums,
all that now remains of that splendor be-
fore which nations staggered and
crouched.
God is now throwing that plumb-llne
over this American Republic, and it Is q
solemn time with this Nation, and whether
whether righteousness or iniquity domi-
nate, whether we are Christians or infdel,
whether we fulfill our mission or refuse it,
whether we are for God or against him weIl
decide whether we shall as a nation go on
IN higher and higher career or 90 down
in the same grave where Babylon and
Nineveh and Thebe9 and Assyria are
sepulchred.
''But," say you, "if there be nothing
but plumb line, what can any of us dof
for there is an old proverb which truth
fully declares: fIf the best mans faults
were written on his forehead Il would
make him pull his hat over his eyes,
What shall we do when, according to
Isaiah, God shall lay judgment 70 the
king and rightousness to the plum metf5 -
All here is where the gospel comes IN
with a Saviodr's righteousness TO make up
for our deficits. And while / sec hanging
on the wall plumb line, see also hang
ing there a cross. And while the one
condemns us the other saves us, IL only
we viii hold to it. And here and now
you may be set free with more glorious
liberty than Hampden, or Sidney, or
a Koscfusko ever fought for. Not out yon-
der, or down there, or up here, but just
where you are you may get it. The in
valid proprietress Of a wealthy estate in
Scotland visited the continent Of Europe
TO get rid of her maladies, and she went
to Baden Baden and tried those waters,
and went to Carlsbad and tried those
waters, and went to Homburg and tried
those waters, and instead Of getting better
she got worse, and in despair she said to q
physician; ''What shall dog"
His reply was: "Medicine can do nothing
for you. You have one chance Ia tbs
waters Of Pit Keathly, Scotland"
sis il possible2" she replieds "why,
those waters are on my own estRts" She
returned, and drank Of the fountain at her
own gate, and Ia two months completely
recovered Oh sick, and diseased, and
dying hearer, why 90 trudging all the